For a while now I have considered myself to be an integrative practitioner - someone who draws on both coaching and therapeutic methodologies in the service of my clients. But what do I actually mean by that?

I’ve been thinking about loyalty, in my life as well as in coaching. To start with I explored coaching through authenticity, and the idea of how centred we are within our roles in my first piece with the good coach, and I’m now expanding that to encompass what it means with regard to how loyal we are to our employers.

Narcissism is a topic that continually bubbles at the surface for Coaching, Psychotherapy and Leadership. If you do a quick search on the internet you’ll find millions and millions of articles and documentation on the subject.

After more than a decade developing and delivering management skills training, I’ve recently extended my practice to provide Executive Coaching. An early experience with a Coachee started me thinking about the potential benefits of combining both disciplines.

For as long as I can remember – and I’ve been coaching a long time – I’ve disliked what I’ve labelled contracting. I’ve dealt with my discomfort by shrugging and saying: I don’t do contracting well. And I’ve got away with it. Or rather, I’ve got away with it until now…

The internal coaching program I belong to has been running over a decade: it’s managed to ride the waves of change and keep its presence alive. The value of developing coaches as part of the organization was driven from a member of the leadership team with genuine enthusiasm and passion.

The following series is a result of conversations with Yvonne Thackray to explore existentialism and what it can add to coaching. Transcripts have been edited in a joint effort to both share and introduce existentialism, an exciting philosophy to practicing coaches, which has enabled Yannick develop his coaching practice.